Smart Watches – Dumb Habits

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

When I wore Casio digital watches, Suunto Dive computers, Suunto GPS watches and other wrist wathces I was happy. You wore it and it tracked what you wanted it to track, from walks, to dives, to altitude changes, weather and more. With the Apple watch a new age emerged. The age of the Digital Watch as object of addiction. I don’t like the term addiction, but I use it for simplicity.

The Suunto Spartan Wrist HR I have tracks all day activity and I didn’t mind. It tracked it in the background but didn’t nag you to do more, or to get up every hour. You just got along with your life until you ended your workout and wanted to see a GPS track.

With Fitbit and with Apple watches you have the same invasive habit. Walk 250 steps an hour, stand for one minute every hour. They nag you. As if that wasn’t enough they also nag you to wash your hands for 20 seconds, and more. The Apple watch is too invasive to be pleasant.

One of my biggest frustrations is that although we have one phone each device now has an app, and the apps don’t speak to each other so you have to choose whether to wear watch A for App A, Watch B for app B or Watch C for app c. All of that data is centralised on Apple or Android devices but it doesn’t jump between them so you are forced to make a choice.

If you skip wearing one instead of the other you have a gap in daily data and this bugs me. I went from wearing a GPS watch to track workouts on weekends and evenings to wearing watches 24 hours a day, that all want you to be loyal 24 hours a day to have complete data.

For me to be happy every watch should be able to send the data from the watch to the app, and from the app to the phone, and from that phone to every other app. By putting the data in silos they force loyalty, but by forcing loyalty they tempt me to stop tracking steps, heart rate sleep and other things. They tempt me to wear a simple watch except for my daily walks.

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High Winds And A Skipped Walk

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There is a cold wind blowing today so I skipped my daily walk. I can dress for the weather and I am usually fine. Today I simply decided to miss my daily walk. I believe that walking whatever the weather, whatever the wind, and whatever the precipitation is good. I also believe that it fatigues us. For this reason it makes sense, sometimes, to stay indoors, and focus on studying or spending money on things we don’t need.


Early Sunsets


One of the problems with winter, aside from cold weather and finding a valid excuse is short days. When days are short you spend daylight working towards your goals, and by the time you’re free to go out the sun has set. It sets at 1720 at the moment so a one and a half hour walk requires going at three in the afternoon at the latest. Today I missed the window of opportunity.


Studies


I finished a course on closures in JavaScript today and I played around with creating a function to convert from knots to kilometres an hour. The first version was simple and had no interactivity but the second version, by copying someone else’s code works. I always make sure to credit the source from which I am learning. The next topic will be JavaScript Classes.


Android and iOS


I revived my android phone and tried Google Pay and it works very well but then tried Android car play or whatever it is called and that worked badly. In fact it didn’t work, so I feel that unless I swap the car, or go for what could be an expensive car os upgrade I might as well stick with Apple despite not being enthused with the platform at the moment. I wish switching the two could be as easy as a dual boot computer or laptop. Choose one, or the other, and everything is smooth. Unfortunately you need to commit to one or the other.


Playing With Tweetdeck


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Walking Into Heavy Rain
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Walking Into Heavy Rain

Byrichard

Sometimes you end up walking into heavy rain. That’s what I did today. I looked at the weather and because it was meant to get better over the coming days I assumed that this evening it would get better. Instead, as I walked it started to rain a little more, and then a little harder, and eventually quite a bit harder. Did I get wet beyond the top layer? Nope, but my beanie got a little wet, as did my fleece. My shoes on the other hand were clean, thanks to the flow of water.


I was lucky today, because if I had set off a little later then I would have been soaked by the time I got home. I skirted the rain by an amusing amount. I could have been drenched if I had set off later. I timed my walk to avoid the sunset, so that would have helped me avoid the rain anyway. I don’t want to walk at night.


Today I walked over 18,000 steps, according to the Casio, 8800 in the morning, and another ten thousand in the evening. In the evening, as the rain started, I decided to run for one kilometre. I tracked it with the Garmin instinct and the Casio. There was no reason to track with both, except that I was curious to see the result. If you want running time step count and distance then the Casio GBD-200 is fine. If you want cadence, heart rate zones, and other data then keep with the Garmin Instinct. To boot, with the Garmin instinct you get to check the weather first, and you might not be caught out, as I was.


And Finally


I was surprised that the Casio GBD-200 doesn’t allow you to select which sport you’re doing. If you track cycling then you will screw up the data, and if you track walking you will use the watch for many more hours per week than it is planned for. I am not often confused about how I feel about a device. I wish the casio would do more, but at the same time I bought it because it does less. I’m all the more confused because according to the Apple Fitness app I stood, moved and exercised enough and now I don’t know what the source for the data was. I need to keep experimenting.

Keir Starmer’s Speech Today

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This speech reminds us that English democracy is not gone, that there are moral people still around, and that we need to get the current Tory government out of power and go back to having leadership worthy of respect.


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https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1488180224667832320

Almost Linear Walks

Almost Linear Walks

Byrichard

Twice in the last two weekends I have done linear rather than circular walks. By linear I don’t mean that I walked from A to B. I mean that I started walking along a loop but when I saw that the routes I wanted to walk were either crowded by couples or people with dugs I will either turn around, or walk across a field to a parallel path that is less crowded.

Busy Weekends

Yesterday I went for my walk. I don’t like walking on weekends, especially sunny warm weekends because that’s when people who don’t walk alone are walking their dogs or with others. It reminds me of my solitude. I also got into the habit of avoiding people during the pandemic, and the pandemic never ended, so I never went back to walking the same paths as others.

Walking Fast

I walk fast, very fast. Nothing says that I have to walk a loop for every walk. Plenty of people walk outwards, along one path, and walk along the same path. Their walks are just a straight line, back and forth. I just got into the habit of walking loops because loops are quite a bit longer than linear walks. They’re also more interesting.

The need for an Easier Walk

The thing I don’t consider enough is fatigue. I believe that I build up fatigue, from walking up to eight kilometres a day, every single day. I could have walked my ten kilometre loop yesterday but I didn’t feel that I had the energy. It’s when you’re tired, and need a rest day that it’s good to go back and forth, rather than push. I still got 10,000 or more steps and I still walked further than most people. It’s just that it wasn’t much by my standard. A rest day is one where I go for a slightly shorter walk than usual.

The Lure of the Project

It’s not just that it’s the weekend, that makes me want to skip my walk. It’s also that I’m task driven. I am currently working on consolidating all of my media drives but this is time consuming, and every time I leave it unattended a messsage pops up, that I need to agree to, before it continues working. If I go for a one and a half hour walk and a message pops up ten minutes into my walk, when I am not there to agree, then the system waits for my return, and I’m stuck with one hour and 20 minutes of transfers.

If I followed my key desire I would just skip the walk but the walk is important for my eyes. They need to focus into the distance, and I need to stay healthy.

And Finally

If my habits weren’t so consistent veering from them would be normal. It is because I am consistent that I feel bad for turning around, rather than walking my usual loop. Fitness wise it’s still a one hour walk, but it’s just shorter than if I walked my loop.

Today is a weekday so I will do my normal walk loop.

Walking With Worn Shoes

Byrichard

At the moment I am walking with worn shoes, not because I do not have shoes that are not worn, but because I do not want to walk with shoes that have good tread at this time of year, due to the mud that gets stuck in them. When I walk with shoes with treads I collect mud during my walk, and I bring it up the stairs when I walk up, and I drop it off when I run back down. This leaves a mess, which, if I was a child, would be forgivable to some degree, but as an adult may be seen as immaturity.


The alternative is to take the lift, but to take the lift is to show a degree of laziness that I am not ready to show. Lifts are slow. I prefer staying healthy by running up and down stairs. The issue is that people in this building do not walk in mud so they leave non behind, but also that they take lifts, rather than stairs. This means that if I leave a trail of mud right to my door people know that it is me. There is a chance that the only people who know this, are the cleaner and me. I don’t know whether other people walk up stairs. I do not often cross people walking up or down the stairs.


Worn shoes do not collect mud, and if they do collect mud then an ordinary doormat can wipe them clean. With deep treads you need a screwdriver or some other tool to coax the mud out. I don’t want to do this too often because I feel that it damages the shoes and wears them out faster than if I just left the mud, to be knocked free as it dries.


We have a few more months of mud, so for a few more months I will have to be more cautious with the evidence, that I leave, after going for a walk.

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